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Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce are a delicious low-carb main dish that the whole family is going to love!

PIN Beef and Sausage Meatballs in Tomato Sauce!

Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce finished meatballs being served

One fun thing that happened when I calculated nutritional information for every recipe is that when I had to revisit every recipe on the blog I found some real gems in the archives that could easily be made lower in carbs! These Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce are a dinner idea that used to be one of my favorites. When Kara and I worked on updating this recipe we switched out the breadcrumbs for flaxseed meal, and we loved these tasty low-carb meatballs!

The meatballs and sauce cook together in the oven, which means that the ground beef and Italian sausage flavors the sauce even more. And even if you've never made meatballs from scratch, trust me when I say this was really easy to make! To see more great ideas using Rao's, check out Low-Carb Recipes Using Raos.

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

  • ground beef
  • Turkey Italian Sausage (or pork sausage)
  • Flaxseed Meal or Hemp Hearts (affiliate links)
  • eggs
  • Garlic Powder (affiliate link)
  • Dried Basil (affiliate link)
  • Dried Oregano (affiliate link)
  • coarsely-grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
  • Rao's Pasta Sauce (affiliate link)

What sauce did we use for the meatballs?

When we updated the recipe we decided to use Rao's Pasta Sauce (affiliate link) for the tomato sauce. I love Rao's sauce, which is the lowest-carb purchased sauce I've found, and their marinara sauce was perfect for this recipe.

Want more easy low-carb recipes using Rao's?

To see more great ideas using different sauces from  Rao's, check out my Kalyn's Kitchen Pick's post about this great sauce that has Low-Carb Recipes Using Raos.

Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce process shots collage

How to make these beef and sausage meatballs:

(Scroll down for complete recipe with nutritional information.)

  1. Preheat oven to 400F/205C.
  2. Put ground beef and Italian sausage into a mixing bowl, squeezing sausage out of the casings.
  3. Add flaxseed meal or hemp hearts, lightly beaten eggs, garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.
  4. Use clean hands to mix together.
  5. We used about 2 tablespoons of meat for each meatball.
  6. Laying the finished meatballs out on a cutting board helps you judge the size of baking dish.
  7. Pour Rao's Marinara Sauce (or another low-sugar pasta sauce) over the meatballs.
  8. Bake 30 minutes, or until meatballs are firm and sauce is bubbling hot.
  9. Sprinkle meatballs with the other 1/2 cup of coarsely-grated Parmesan and serve hot.

Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce square image of cooked meatballs in baking dish

More Tasty Ideas for Meatballs:

Baked Greek Meatballs with Feta
Baked Swedish Meatballs
Bacon Cheeseburger Meatballs

Weekend Food Prep:

This recipe has been added to a category called Weekend Food Prep  to help you find recipes you can prep or cook on the weekend and eat during the week!

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • one 19.5 oz. package Turkey Italian Sausage
  • 1/2 cup flax seed meal or hemp hearts
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1 tsp. dried basil
  • 1 tsp. dried oregano
  • 1 cup coarsely-grated Parmesan cheese, divided
  • salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
  • one 24 oz. jar Rao's Marinara Sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400F/205C.
  2. Remove ground beef and Italian sausage from the fridge and put it into a mixing bowl, squeezing sausage out of the casings.
  3. Add flaxseed meal, lightly beaten eggs, garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste to the bowl.
  4. Use clean hands to mix together just until ingredients are well-combined.
  5. We used a tablespoon-sized measuring spoon to scoop about 2 tablespoons of meat for each meatball.
  6. You should cook these in a baking dish where the meatballs are close to together, so laying the finished meatballs out on a cutting board helps you judge the size of dish you need.
  7. We made 20 meatballs and used a dish that was 9 inches x 14 inches.
  8. Pour the Rao's Marinara Sauce (or another low-sugar pasta sauce) over the meatballs, making sure each meatball is covered with a little sauce.
  9. Bake 30 minutes, or until meatballs are firm and sauce is bubbling hot.
  10. Sprinkle meatballs with the other 1/2 cup of coarsely-grated Parmesan and serve hot.

Notes

Most stores probably carry Flaxseed Meal (affiliate link), and it's a great low-carb option to replace breadcrumbs for binding meatloaf and meatballs. This recipe can also be made with Hemp Hearts (affiliate link). The nutritional information was calculated with Flaxseed Meal which seems to be slightly lower in carbs than Hemp Hearts, but both are very low in carbs.

Nutritional information is calculated on 4 large meatballs per serving.

Recipe adapted from Old Fashioned Meatballs  at Epicurious.com.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

5

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 745 Total Fat: 48g Saturated Fat: 14g Trans Fat: 1g Unsaturated Fat: 28g Cholesterol: 279mg Sodium: 1769mg Carbohydrates: 11g Fiber: 4g Sugar: 2g Protein: 64g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce a great dish for low-carb or low-glycemic diets or for any phase of the original South Beach Diet. South Beach would prefer lean ground beef and low-fat turkey sausage; other diet plans might prefer pork sausage or beef with more fat, although with higher-fat meats some of the fat will ooze out of the meatballs into the sauce so I would still prefer turkey sausage for this.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Oven Dinners to find more recipes like this one. Use the Diet Type Index to find recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to Follow Kalyn's Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I'm sharing there.

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was first posted in 2006! It was updated with better photos and more information in 2021.

Beef and Sausage Meatballs with Tomato Sauce Pinterest image